Factors influencing infection prevention and control practices in Bamenda health district, Cameroon

Abstract

Infection transmission can be quite common, understandably due to patient/client care activities. Clients entering and leaving the hospital and also health personnel may disseminate infection from one department to another, person to person, from the hospital back to the community and vise versa. The prevention and control of infection depends to a large extent on how health personnel carry out their procedures, handle and dispose of hospital garbage, refuse and various contaminants. In health units where medico-surgical procedures are carried out, laboratory specimens handled and injections given, garbage generated could be very highly infectious. With the advent of the HIV/AIDS pandemic, health personnel should be very careful how syringes and needles, blood products and other body secretions are handled as well as how they carry out various medico-surgical procedures in the various health facilities and units. More so, modern public health practices require that stringent measures be taken by the state and health personnel to protect the population from infection, particularly epidemics. Infection prevention and control has been a challenging problem to the public health sector in Cameroon in general and in the Bamenda health district in particular. This has led to an upsurge of many infections, especially HIV/AIDS with a prevalence rate of 13% in the Bamenda health district. Study Purpose The study purpose was to determine the factors influencing the practice of the recommended infection prevention and control measures, the knowledge gaps and deficiencies of health service providers, in order to come up with concrete proposals and ways of improving and strengthening infection prevention and control activities in the Bamenda Health District. Objective The main objective of this study was to determine the factors influencing infection prevention and control practices with emphasis on HIV/AIDS in the Bamenda Health District.